<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>my reflection (from a new perspective) by fraudulentzodiacs</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633942">my reflection (from a new perspective)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraudulentzodiacs/pseuds/fraudulentzodiacs'>fraudulentzodiacs</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Hockey RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:40:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,009</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraudulentzodiacs/pseuds/fraudulentzodiacs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts as an itch at the back of his throat. Annoying, but not anything to really worry about. He chalks it up to allergies and gets on with it, especially when he gets traded. It’s not exactly a surprise – the Avs are heavy on D-men and his contract is expensive and…yeah. He’s heartbroken, disappointed, and he really doesn’t want to go to Toronto.</p><p>He doesn’t want to leave Gabe. </p><p>Gabe, who he’s been in love with for years. Gabe, who is never going to love him back. Gabe, who is very straight.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frederik Andersen/Tyson Barrie, Tyson Barrie/Gabriel Landeskog (one-sided)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Discord 2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>my reflection (from a new perspective)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the RPF's weekly challenge. This week's prompt was "why can't I be enough?"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts as an itch at the back of his throat. Annoying, but not anything to really worry about. He chalks it up to allergies and gets on with it, especially when he gets traded. It’s not exactly a surprise – the Avs are heavy on D-men and his contract is expensive and…yeah. He’s heartbroken, disappointed, and he <em>really</em> doesn’t want to go to Toronto.</p><p>He doesn’t want to leave <em>Gabe</em>.</p><p>Gabe, who he’s been in love with for years. Gabe, who is never going to love him back. Gabe, who is very straight.</p><p>So, yeah. It sucks, but he packs his bags and trades places with Kadri while they both get settled in.</p><p>Toronto is different from Denver in almost every possible way. The guys start filtering in as training camp gets closer, and they’re cool. Matts is fun if a little dramatic. Mitch reminds him of an excitable puppy. Freddie is…well, to be honest Freddie is 100% Tyson’s type. But, then he thinks of Gabe and pushes that flicker of attraction away.</p><p>The guys stay in touch, and it makes things a little bit easier. EJ video chats with him once a week, and Gabe texts him constantly. It’s mostly pictures of Linnea, who is adorable, and Tyson loves her even if she’s the physical embodiment of everything that Tyson can’t have.</p><p>His allergies get worse, the itch at the back of his throat turning to an ache. He develops a cough, but he chalks it up to the new environment. He’s just got to give himself time to adjust, time to get used to the new normal.</p><p>That works until the first petals.</p><p>He’s just returned home after a particularly grueling practice, and a coughing fit hits him so hard that he’s practically doubled over in his kitchen. He coughs and coughs until he begins to worry that he’ll never stop, until something light and paper thing floats out of his mouth and into his hand. He stares at it, white and kind of round and speckled with red – with <em>blood</em> – and pinches it between two fingers. It’s –</p><p>It's a <em>flower petal</em>.</p><p><em>Shit</em>.</p><p>Tyson’s heard of this. It’s rare, but it figures that it would happen to him. He tosses the petal into the trash and collapses on his couch, phone in hand. He googles it and gets a result fairly quickly.</p><p><em>Hanahaki Disease: A respiratory disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The only known treatments are when the object of a victim’s affections returns their feelings, or surgery to remove both the flowers and the feelings</em>.</p><p>Well, the first one isn’t happening, Tyson muses. And the second option…the thought of cutting out his feelings for Gabe leaves him feeling panicked and sweaty. He scrolls further down and feels his blood run cold because</p><p>
  <em>If left untreated or unresolved, Hanahaki is fatal. </em>
</p><p>He turns his phone off in favor of coughing into a pillow.</p><p>It doesn’t get better, the coughing and the petals, but it doesn’t get worse. He manages, is able to hide the petals that come up every few days. If he drags, if he feels sapped of energy more than half the time, well he can blame it on a grueling season and a difficult transition. He’s not fitting in, not clicking with the team, and that doesn’t help either. He’s slipping on his tennis shoes after practice when a pair of feet enter his vision. He looks up to find Freddie smiling down at him.</p><p>“Hey man.” He leans back so he can look up at the goalie comfortably.</p><p>“You want to grab some lunch?” He asks, and Tyson knows that his eyes widen in surprise. Everyone’s been friendly, but no one’s really made an effort to <em>befriend</em> him.</p><p>“Uh…sure?”</p><p>“Great.” Freddie nods and taps his stall. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”</p><p>True to his word, Freddie’s leaning against his car when Tyson gets there. His smile is soft and welcoming, and Tyson finds himself smiling back. It should be awkward, his first time alone with Freddie, but there’s something calming about Freddie that makes it more natural, something that reminds him of his teammates in Colorado.</p><p>“How are you settling in?” Freddie asks once they’re in a corner booth of a small sandwich shop. Tyson stirs his drink with his straw and shrugs.</p><p>“It’s okay.”</p><p>“It’s always strange, coming to a new team.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Tyson knows he’s being difficult, but this is literally the last thing he wants to talk about.</p><p>“You’re doing good, though. It just takes time.”</p><p>“Yeah, well.” <em>I don’t have time</em> he wants to say, but doesn’t. <em>I’m going to die because I’m in love with someone who will never love me back</em>.</p><p>“The guys will open up to you, if you let them.” When Tyson’s gaze moves up, Freddie’s gaze is stern, but not intimidating. Tyson sighs and leans back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling.</p><p>“I know. I just…I thought it would be like when I got sent up and down, y’know? But it’s…it’s not. I’m used to wearing that sweater, with those guys, and it’s not that anyone on the team isn’t great or whatever, it’s just…”</p><p>“It’s not your guys.” Freddie supplies, and Tyson nods. “I’m not going to tell you it will all work out and be great, but it <em>can </em>be better than you think, better than it is. You just have to give it a chance.”</p><p>Tyson stares at the table for a long moment, back up at Freddie, then back at the table again.</p><p>“Yeah.” He finally sighs. “You’re right.”</p><p>After that, it seems to Tyson like Freddie had decided to adopt him. He ends up having dinner with him at least once a week. He gets invites to his ‘bro nights’ with Matts and Marns. Freddie’s not an avid texter, but the stuff he does send has Tyson snorting in laughter. It doesn’t lessen the ache that Tyson feels when he thinks about his old team – thinks about Gabe – and it doesn’t lessen his symptoms, but it’s <em>nice</em> and Tyson feels a little less alone.</p><p>It all works to distract him until Christmas.</p><p>They don’t have enough time to justify flying across the country to spend the holiday with his family, which makes Tyson’s chest ache because it’s his <em>last</em> Christmas with his family and he can’t be with them.</p><p>“You’re staying in town?” Freddie asks after their last practice, and when Tyson nods he invites him over to spend the day with him. It’s nice, comfortable, until Tyson can’t catch his breath and folds over as he gasps on Freddie’s couch.</p><p>Freddie’s there immediately, calm, rubbing a hand over his back as Tyson hacks and coughs and chokes until half a dozen blood-speckled petals fall into his hands. He wheezes as he struggles to catch his breath, crushing the petals in his hand.</p><p>“Jesus. Are you okay?” Freddie finally asks, his hand still heavy on Tyson’s back.</p><p>“Yeah.” Tyson’s voice is rough, his throat feels like it’s on fire, and no he’s <em>not</em> okay because now Freddie knows, someone <em>knows</em> and they’re going to make him <em>do something</em> about it.</p><p>“You have <em>blomkaste</em>?”</p><p>“Uh…”</p><p>“It means…flower sickness?” Freddie tries. “Flowers in your lungs?”</p><p>“Hanahaki.” Tyson confirms.</p><p>“You love someone?” Freddie asks, and Tyson nods. “And they don’t feel the same?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“There’s treatments, aren’t there?”</p><p>“Surgery. But, I’d lose…I’d lose the feelings, maybe even the memories.”</p><p>“But if you don’t…”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Tyson, you can’t want to <em>die</em>.” Tyson looks up at that, finds pain in Freddie’s eyes, confusion.</p><p>“No, of course not. But I can’t…I don’t want to lose him either.” He bites his lip, curses himself because now not only will Freddie know that Tyson’s in love, but that he’s in love with a <em>man</em>. Freddie doesn’t look surprised; in fact, his face doesn’t change from pure concern.</p><p>“But you don’t…” He starts, and Tyson knows what he wants to say. <em>You don’t have him anyway</em>. Instead, he closest his mouth and finally nods, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Have you told the trainers?”</p><p>“I haven’t told anyone.”</p><p>“The team needs to know. If you let this progress, you won’t be able to skate much longer.”</p><p>“I’ll make it through the season, probably. Please, Fred, I don’t want anyone to know.”</p><p>“Tyson…”</p><p>“I’ll get through the season, then I’ll go home and…”</p><p>“And you’ll die.” Freddie finishes, his voice cracking at the last word, and Tyson nods.</p><p>“I’m…not okay, of course. But I’m at peace with it. It’s what I want.”</p><p>Freddie stares at him until Tyson’s squirming, but he finally nods and doesn’t remove his arm from around Tyson’s shoulders.</p><p>It doesn’t get easier, after that. If anything, it gets worse. There’s a constant ache in Tyson’s chest, congestion and pain and hacking coughs that have him doubling over. He manages to hide it from the team, but Freddie watches him like a hawk. Suddenly, he’s over at Freddie’s two or three times a week. Dinner, movies, any excuse Freddie can find to have Tyson over. It happens on the road, too, Freddie inviting him to his room to watch whatever show they’re binging on his laptop.</p><p>They’re in Dallas, on the second season of <em>Mindhunters</em>, and Tyson’s so exhausted. It’s getting worse, he knows. It’s affecting his ability to sleep, coughing fits overtaking him anytime he tries to lay down flat. He’s started coughing up more white petals, but no full flowers yet – the sign of the final stage of the disease, according to the internet. He’s so tired all of the time, and Keefe yells at him on a regular basis for being a lazy ass on the ice but he’s <em>trying</em>, giving every bit of energy he has to the team until he can’t. Freddie is warm where he’s pressed up against his side, and they’re ten minutes into the next episode when he drops his head on Freddie’s shoulder and is asleep between one breath and the next.</p><p>When he awakens the laptop is on the nightstand, the lights dark, and he’s propped up against Freddie’s chest, his arm keeping him upright. The clock tells him he hasn’t been asleep for that long, but it’s the best sleep he’s had in weeks and he feels more rested than he has in a long time. He can tell that Freddie’s awake, running the tips of his fingers along Tyson’s arm. He shuffles, moves to pull away, but Freddie’s grip on him tightens until he falls back onto him.</p><p>“Will you tell me?” Freddie’s voice is quiet, rough. “Who it is?”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“It’s Landeskog, isn’t it?” Tyson tenses, answer enough. “I’m sorry, Tys.”</p><p>“It’s not his fault.” Tyson feels himself drifting off again, the lure of decent sleep to tempting to ignore. He shuffles until he can press his face more firmly into Freddie’s chest.</p><p>He’s so close to sleep he’s pretty sure that he imagines Freddie saying, “I can’t imagine someone not loving you.”</p><p>The season gets paused, and two weeks later the first full flower comes.</p><p>Tyson’s alone, thankfully, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to choke to death on his bathroom floor. He’s gasping for air when it finally falls into the sink, and he nearly collapses. It opens up and once Tyson calms down he googles it and finds that it’s a gardenia, which means secret love and <em>of course it does</em>. He leans against the wall, switches over to his messaging app and finds his conversation with Freddie. He’d promised he’d tell him when the flowers started coming, sends off a quick text. Freddie replies almost immediately.</p><p><em>I’m on my way</em>.</p><p>Tyson wants to tell him not to come over, that he’s fine, but the knowledge that Freddie – that <em>someone</em> – cares enough has tears burning in his eyes. That’s how Freddie finds him twenty minutes later. He slides down the wall opposite Tyson, rests his arms on his knees, and waits for Tyson.</p><p>“You didn’t have to come over.”</p><p>“Yes, I did.” Freddie tells him. “Do you want to move to the bed?”</p><p>Tyson nods, and lets Freddie help him up. When he catches sight of himself in the mirror he gasps at his ashen skin, his sunken eyes. He looks…well, he looks like he’s dying. Freddie guides him to the bed, a hand around his waist that Tyson finds he needs to hold steady. Freddie throws the blankets back and helps him into the bed. He kneels down next to Tyson, pushes his curls back, and Tyson’s surprised by what he finds in Freddie’s eyes when he looks at him.</p><p>“Fred?”</p><p>“Please have the surgery.” Freddie’s eyes are suddenly shining, and Tyson’s heart clenches in his chest. “<em>Please</em>, Tys.”</p><p>“I…I can’t. I don’t want to lose-“</p><p>“I don’t want to lose <em>you</em>.” Freddie grasps Tyson’s hand, clutching it like a lifeline. “Please, Tyson.”</p><p>“Fred-“</p><p>“I love you.” The words escape Freddie like they’re being torn out of him, his voice rough. “I know you love him, but <em>I </em>love <em>you</em> and I don’t want to watch you die. Why can’t I be enough?”</p><p>Tyson opens his mouth to speak, but another coughing fit hits him instead. Freddie lets go of his hand so he can help him sit up, collects the bloody petals that fall without a word and carries them to the bathroom.</p><p>“You love me?” Tyson gasps out when Freddie returns. He doesn’t come close this time, stands across the room with his arms folded across his chest. He nods, staring at the ground. “I…I didn’t know.”</p><p>“I didn’t want you to. It kind of sucks when you figure out you’re falling in love with someone who would rather die than stop loving someone else.”</p><p>“Freddie…”</p><p>“I just…if there’s a chance, I had to tell you. That you have another option. You have me.”</p><p>“Can I have some time? To think?”</p><p>“Of course.” Freddie nods. “But I’m not leaving you. You’re too sick. I’ll be in the guest bedroom, just tell me if you need anything, okay?”</p><p>Tyson nods, and his breath stutters in his chest – not because of the flowers, for once – when Freddie crosses the room and drops a kiss on his forehead.</p><p>He leans back against the pillows, thinks about Freddie, thinks about how close they’ve grown since Tyson got sick. How gentle Freddie is with him, how he accepted Tyson’s choice, how he fell in love with <em>Tyson</em> of all people, all while Tyson was dying because of his feelings for someone else. He thinks about sleeping on him, depending on him, how Freddie had become the steadiest presence in his life.</p><p>He lets himself imagine it, for the first time. Lets himself think about Freddie, Freddie’s lips on his, imagines how well they’d move against one another. It had been absolutely no one but Gabe for so long he’d thought it would be strange to think about being with anyone else but something about Freddie felt right in a way that he’d never imagined with anyone but Gabe.</p><p>He thinks about other things, innocent things like cooking dinner with Freddie or holding his hand or just resting in his arms. His heart hurts, but there’s also a swirl of excitement in his gut that hadn’t been there before. He still loves Gabe, but maybe…</p><p>He scrolls through his phone until he finds a hanahaki specialist in the GTA.</p><p>He doesn’t tell Freddie the next day, sends him to his own apartment for clothes and things since he apparently refuses to leave Tyson’s apartment. The appointment is virtual, which is a little strange, but Dr. Vilay is kind and patient with his questions.</p><p>“You think that you have developed feelings for someone other than the object of your hanahaki?” She asks, her voice kind and free of judgment.</p><p>“Maybe? I’m not sure. Is that possible?”</p><p>“It is.” She nods. “It’s rare, but it does happen.”</p><p>“I don’t…I care about him, but I don’t want to forget my feelings.”</p><p>“There’s a theory about hanahaki, that you can cure it by developing feelings for someone else, and letting go of the object of your affections. An old wives’ tale, originally, but new research has indicated there’s some merit to it.”</p><p>“So, I could keep my feelings for G – for the other person and not die?”</p><p>“Do you truly care about this new person?” She asks, and Tyson nods enthusiastically because he <em>does</em> care about Freddie. “There’s some experimental treatments, combined with therapy, I think it could work to treat your hanahaki.”</p><p>Tyson’s crying tears of relief by the time they end the call.</p><p>He’s waiting by the front door when Freddie returns, a duffle bag in one hand and groceries in the other. Tyson patiently waits for them to set the bags down before launching himself Freddie. It’s messy, when their lips meet, and Tyson probably could have tried to make their first kiss a little better, but Freddie grips his waist with one hand and his face with the other and changes the angle and suddenly it’s <em>great</em> and Tyson whimpers against him. He opens up against Freddie, lets him guide the kiss until he feels another coughing fit coming on.</p><p>He pulls away, but Freddie holds onto him as Tyson coughs and coughs, but nothing comes up.</p><p><em>Nothing comes up</em>.</p><p>Tyson turns back to Freddie and beams.</p><p>It’s not easy, it takes time and dozens of doctor visits, the entirety of the pause, but Freddie is a constant presence at his side as he slowly but surely recovers. But, by the time they’re loading the bus to take them the whole five-minute drive to the hotel they’ll be living in for months, Tyson feels lighter, healthier, and he hasn’t coughed up a petal in weeks.</p><p>Freddie takes the seat next to him, slips his hand in Tyson’s, and Tyson grips back.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>